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Bob Quixote posted:I would want to find a way to create a list of spells that are useable from character level 1 which improve over time either in terms of damage dealt (or HP healed), duration of effect or which gains certain improvements when the caster hits a certain Threshold level. Have you read 13th Age? The way spells work is that you still have spell slots, but the effects of a spell will increase if you prep them in a higher-level spell slot. So if you prep the level 1 spell "Shield" as a level 1 spell, it forces an enemy that hits your AC to reroll the attack. But is you prep it as a level 3 spell, you also get +2 AC versus the reroll. If prepped at level 5, the spell also effects attacks that target your Physical Defense in addition to your AC, and so on. Likewise, prepping damaging spells in higher-level slots makes them do more damage. Magic Missile does 2d4 damage as a 1st level spell, then 2d8 as a level 3 spell. In fact, after a certain point you actually lose your lower-level spell slots because you're just getting so good at casting spells.
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Jan 24, 2015 17:35
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Evil Mastermind posted:Have you read 13th Age? The way spells work is that you still have spell slots, but the effects of a spell will increase if you prep them in a higher-level spell slot. I just started reading through the online SRD and thought that it looked like a great setup. It's really similar to how I want to do things too, except my idea was generic spell-slots instead of level-based ones... I think it actually works out to be almost the same mechanically speaking though since there aren't any low level spell slots for a high level Wizard in 13th age, so every spell you cast is maximized by default. I've got a basic list of spell effects down now - Cure Wounds (gets properties of Cure Serious & Heal/Regenerate at high levels) Tongues (gets Speak w/Animals , Plants & Dead at high levels) Animate Dead (temporary minions at low levels, as normal spell at higher levels) Fireball (5" radius at low levels, normal radius at high levels) Lightning Bolt (10"+10"/level range at low levels, normal range at high levels) Cone of Cold (20" cone at low levels, normal size at high levels) Magic Missile (missile damage and number gets beefed up at high levels) Color Spray (becomes a weaker version of Prismatic Spray at high levels) Magic Cloud (starts as Fog, then becomes Stinking Cloud & later Cloud Kill at high levels) Dispel Magic (always works equally well) Animal Form (animal form with HD < or = Caster level for 1 hour/level) Illusion (creates illusions that get better at high levels) Invisibility (can't attack at low levels, can attack at high levels but 50% chance to end spell each time) Web (increased duration by level) Floating Eye (increased duration and more eyes at high level) Charm (person at low levels can try it on animals at higher levels) Levitation (becomes flight at high levels. Can't cast spells or attack while in the air) Are there any major utility effects that I'm missing here? Stuff that would be essential to use that I might have overlooked? I was hoping to have a list of about 20 spells in total that way anyone who wanted to have a randomized starting spell selection for their game could just roll 3 times down the list. I honestly don't play too many Wizards so I'm not that up on what is considered the must-have's for that class (I think my last caster was a Paladin).
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Jan 25, 2015 02:09
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Maybe make web single target at low levels. Charm multiple targets at higher levels. Levitation multiple targets at higher levels. Youre missing stuff like silence and light. Silence single target at low levels, aoe at higher. Light, candle at low levels, continual light at mid levels, daylight at high levels (damage to vampires etc.)
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Jan 26, 2015 16:54
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Payndz posted:I liked the "wizards can cast any spell from the start but they scale up with level" idea so much I've already stolen it for my next retroclone (a development of TAAC). Since it only has three "levels", equivalent to roughly 2, 6 and 10, the actual scaling is pretty straightforward. This is exciting! TAAC is my fave retroclone and I'm glad you're writing more.
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Jan 26, 2015 17:05
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gradenko_2000 posted:This is exciting! TAAC is my fave retroclone and I'm glad you're writing more. It's called You All Meet In A Tavern - yes, it's embracing the cliche whole-heartedly. The idea is that you pick a class (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Thief, Dwarf or Elf) of one of three 'tiers' appropriate to the difficulty of the adventure, all of which have set ability scores. You have four points to add as you see fit, and then you're done with character creation. There are no weapon or armour choices - AC is set by class, with a possible DEX modifier, and your Hit Die determines how much damage you do with any physical attack (d4 for Wizards to d10 for Fighters, with a STR modifier). There's no equipment either; you're assumed to have access to all standard adventuring gear, and there's a "rabbit from a hat" rule that once per game allows you to say you had a special item on you all along if it fits within certain parameters and you can justify it to the GM. Every game starts with the GM saying "You all meet in a tavern, looking for adventure. It finds you when..." and then the patron appears and tells you what the mission is. The missions are intended to be fairly short, playable in a single session, with set victory goals. They also have Achievements, which give points for doing certain things - basically a version of tournament play. Casters then pick their spells from a small selection based on the mission requirements, and the mission starts. The whole system is d20 roll-under-stat. Combat is similar to TAAC, where you're either in melee or you're not (now called Support). Melee combatants can choose to do a Blitz Attack, which is a guaranteed hit with a risk of taking a counterattack in the process. If you don't Blitz, in the enemy round you have the chance to intercept attacks on PCs in Support. If you're in Support and you get hit by a melee attack, then you're not just hurt but also dragged into Melee and need to disengage to get back to relative safety. Spells (and miracles, replacing TAAC's divine powers, in turn replacing BX's cleric spells) are limited in number - probably no more than 20 for each class, but can be cast at any tier, most spells having power boosts at higher levels. A change is that Wisdom is now Perception, and Charisma is now Willpower - so converting characters directly from BX or 1e requires a bit more work than in TAAC, but other than that it's intended to make use of old-school monsters and the like with as little effort as possible. If your character gets killed, then you can either cross out the name and come straight back as their twin brother or sister, or create a new one. Either way they arrive as soon as the new sheet is filled out, having just caught up from the tavern, but the replacement loses any personal Achievements - so the person who keeps their original character alive to the end is most likely to 'win'. I'm working on the project on and off in amongst actual work and having a life, but most of the bones are now in place, so hopefully it won't be long before I can start to flesh it out fully.
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Jan 26, 2015 21:56
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I've been fooling around with Morrowind a lot lately, and it occurs to me that it sort of uses a magic system like this. So it might be something worth looking at both in terms of how they did it, and also how not to do it. You have easy access to most of the game's spell effects. What limits you is your gold, your mana pool, and your skill. You've got to buy spells, and then pay again when you make your own. Its not much of an issue later on, but early on it is. Characters have a mana pool that only returns during downtime, so if you don't carefully track it you might be in a lurch when you really need it. Your odds of successfully casting a spell are based on your skill, so if you try casting a spell that is out of your league you might end up wasting all of your mana with nothing to show. The minigame of managing a dwindling pool of resources that you spend to overcome challenges is pretty retro-dnd.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:27
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Bob Quixote posted:Are there any major utility effects that I'm missing here? Stuff that would be essential to use that I might have overlooked? I was hoping to have a list of about 20 spells in total that way anyone who wanted to have a randomized starting spell selection for their game could just roll 3 times down the list. Two things jumped out at me:
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Jan 26, 2015 23:17
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Bob Quixote posted:Are there any major utility effects that I'm missing here? Stuff that would be essential to use that I might have overlooked? I was hoping to have a list of about 20 spells in total that way anyone who wanted to have a randomized starting spell selection for their game could just roll 3 times down the list. This could be folded into Telekinesis, but Floating Disc will always have a fond spot in my heart. It and light are both ones that you should 100% include if you're running a certain type of dungeon crawl, but that are way less important the less stuff like torches and treasure weight matter. Light's always useful as a way to blind enemies, though. Sleep is pretty much the most picked 1st level MU spell in early editions. It could fold into Hold Person pretty well, too. Maybe make it start off just as a mesmerize that's broken by any nearby violence or loud noises, then it actually knocks you out/etc as it levels up? Other spells that may or may not be appropriate: Locate Object, Detect Evil (which, originally, was just 'Detect Hostile Intent'), Protection from [Hot/Cold/Demons/Etc], Dimensional Door, Polymorph (maybe start it off as just a disguise thing?), Bless, Cure Poison It might be useful to think about what spells can and can not do at certain levels. Things like when a SoS/SoD is allowed, what the difference is between mass/single target spells, etc.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:09
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The "wizards can cast any spell from the start but they scale up with level" discussion is really cool and something I might steal for one of the games I run. Also, it isn't the same thing exactly, but it made me think of the way spells are handled in Dungeon Crawl Classics; the spell list is fairly small and the caster makes a d20 check to determine the success/failure of the spell, whether it uses up a spell slot for the day and how powerful the effect is. If you've got access to those rules it might be something to check out, if only to see how Goodman handled the scaling of the spell effects, which are each about a 1+ page table going from "takes effect as normal, uses spell slot" to "permanency/divine intervention." with lots of weirdness in between.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:24
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vuk83 posted:Maybe make web single target at low levels. These all sound like great ideas. I wasn't sure whether or not to make Light an at-will cantrip type effect, but having it scale up to a burst of super-bright light at high levels sounds pretty cool! Silence is also a pretty fun effect, especially if paired with Invisibility (not to mention as a good counter to enemy casters of course). Weird Uncle Dave posted:Two things jumped out at me: I think I'll fold the levitate-other into the standard Levitation effect and at higher levels you can use it as a Telekinesis instead of Fly. Summoning is something I might not throw in though - I would if I didn't already have animate dead there, but I figured that one controllable minion type spell was enough and I've always had a soft spot for necromancers. OtspIII posted:This could be folded into Telekinesis, but Floating Disc will always have a fond spot in my heart. It and light are both ones that you should 100% include if you're running a certain type of dungeon crawl, but that are way less important the less stuff like torches and treasure weight matter. Light's always useful as a way to blind enemies, though. Floating disc should fold easily into Levitate. Perhaps it could be worded that the caster is either able to make themselves slowly float along, float inanimate objects slowly or try to use it as an attack to cause someone else to levitate but they get a save to resist the effect? Sleep I was a little leery about since its usually derided as an encounter-ender. I figured that Color Spray was already a pretty decent alternative and that Web or Charm could prove equally useful in terms of non-damaging enemy control. I think Animal Form isn't a bad Polymorph substitute - though I'm not sure if Polymorph Other/Baleful Polymorph is something I'd want to include. Then again, considering that Saving Throws only get better with level and the target will have a flat success chance it's not like it's that much worse than any other spell I suppose? EDIT On a totally different note, what is the general opinion that people have about Opportunity Attacks / Fighter Tanking abilities? Yea or Nay? I was wanting to include a set of good and simple rules for when and how free/bonus attacks can be used in combat. I really liked the idea behind AoO in 3.5 but really didn't like the big arcane list of rules and restrictions surrounding them and thought the whole setup could be broken down more easily into a few short lines. What I have so far is this: 1) If an enemy is trying to flee from melee combat you get a free attack against them. The most basic one - I think every edition of D&D has included this rule in some form or another. Since combat stunts are a thing that you can attempt with every attack you may even try to trip a guy up if he's someone you don't want getting away for plot specific reasons. 2) If your character is Defending this round and an enemy moves into melee range with them you get a free attack against them before their attack (a variation of the old "set spears against a charge" rule). If you take the free attack you give up your Defensive bonus for the rest of the round. This could be pretty useful if you and your fellow fighters (or henchmen if you are running a game with lots of retainers) decide to form a line and Defend together since it would let you hold chokepoints against enemies trying to move past you to get to the more fragile party members. 3) If an enemy attempts to cast a spell, use a missile weapon or attack you unarmed while in melee range you get a free attack against them. These are mostly just here to make life a little harder for wizards & to give a good reason to drop bows and draw swords when the enemy starts moving in close (or any kind of weapon at all since fist vs. mace is usually not a good idea to attempt). I had read that in 5e you only get a single AoO per round, which seems a bit restrictive but I can kind of get why they do it that way - it gives some advantage to groups of enemies that move against a single character. I think if the damage from an opportunity attack is allowed to splash or cleave like a regular attack though it would still allow high level fighters to obliterate whole groups of very weak opponents who try to swarm them, which would fit the sort of heroic/cinematic feel that I would like higher level martial characters to have. Bob Quixote fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 00:54
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So I'm running RC D&D for 9 of my closest friends tonight. I'm thrilled beyond words.
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Jan 28, 2015 16:25
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Bob Quixote posted:On a totally different note, what is the general opinion that people have about Opportunity Attacks / Fighter Tanking abilities? Yea or Nay? What you have there looks pretty good. The parts about trying to move past/away from someone you're in melee combat with are absolutely vital if you want things like combat placement to matter at all, and being able to punish spells/ranged attacks are good too. All the stuff about setting against a charge and so on work, but aren't quite as vital and should maybe be playtested a bit to see if people have trouble remembering them. One rule I use is the idea of fighting retreats. Basically, you can disengage from combat without taking a hit, but only if the following conditions are met: you move at half speed and lose any other actions (to represent that you're backing up defensively instead of just booking it), you're running away and not just diving deeper into enemy lines, and you declare it before you roll initiative (at the same time you'd be declaring spellcasting).
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Jan 28, 2015 16:50
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Bob Quixote posted:On a totally different note, what is the general opinion that people have about Opportunity Attacks / Fighter Tanking abilities? Yea or Nay? There was some talk in the 5e thread a very long time ago regarding fighter combat superiority dice. In the build they were talking about fighters could spend a die and add the result to a damage roll, or they could spend the die when they got hit by an attack to reduce the damage by the die result. These dice came back at the start of a fighter's turn. which meant players had to decide if they wanted to play defensively or offensively from round to round, which is almost always a false choice in dnd combat, offense is always better. Someone wisely suggested that fighters get the dice back at the END of their turn instead. In effect, if team monsters didn't spend their turn attacking the fighter and whittling down his dice, they'd be setting themselves up to get walloped when he acted again and could freely spend all of his dice. I thought that was a really simple way to add a tank-ish mechanic that works on and off a grid. OAs are only worth it if you are playing on a grid I think. So, is this game going to use one?
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Jan 28, 2015 19:41
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dwarf74 posted:So I'm running RC D&D for 9 of my closest friends tonight. How many of them will survive the adventure?
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Jan 28, 2015 20:26
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dwarf74 posted:So I'm running RC D&D for 9 of my closest friends tonight. A module or did you cook up something?
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Jan 28, 2015 20:36
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Lightning Lord posted:A module or did you cook up something? We'll be using rapid advancement (not dividing xp by number of players) and replacing dead PCs at will. And giving 1,000 xp for bringing or wearing 80's stuff. You know. For atmosphere. It's just for 1 or 2 sessions, kind of a break from our 4e game, and I want a fun little light diversion. The big house rules are (1) minimum of half HP possible at 1st, and (2) Thief skills add 3x Dex score to the percentages. Keeping it simple. I'll be running it out of the Moldvay Basic book I've had since 1982, when I began my descent into nerdery. And Dark Dungeons. And the RC I got for $4 from some poor schmuck on Amazon last year.
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Jan 28, 2015 22:21
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Bob Quixote posted:1) If an enemy is trying to flee from melee combat you get a free attack against them. The most basic one - I think every edition of D&D has included this rule in some form or another. Since combat stunts are a thing that you can attempt with every attack you may even try to trip a guy up if he's someone you don't want getting away for plot specific reasons. If you want to add space control elements to keep goblins from shanking the party wizard, I would go for a trigger like "when a creature passes between two enemies or an enemy and an obstacle", probably with decent flanking bonuses. That way the combatants are encouraged to form lines without losing their ability to maneuver when needed.
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Jan 29, 2015 00:43
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I ran a 4 hour B/X dungeon crawl on Tuesday. Game still owns. One of the players just loved chucking flaming oil everywhere. I'll try to do a longer write-up later, but I didn't actually use as many houserules as I thought I'd need.Bob Quixote posted:On a totally different note, what is the general opinion that people have about Opportunity Attacks / Fighter Tanking abilities? Yea or Nay? AFAIK, B/X D&D didn't grant you a free attack: you either "fought defensively" in which case you moved back at half movement rate but retained your full AC and could still attack, or you "retreated" in which case you fled at full movement but took a -4 penalty to AC for anyone that still wanted to hit you before your movement executed (it also removed your shield AC bonus, something which I personally dislike as being too specific) In the game I ran, I used TAAC's rules to run it in Theater of the Mind: you're either in range or you're in melee. It takes one "move" to go from in range to melee. If you "fight defensively", you could still attack and retain full AC, but if someone successfully hits you before your next turn you're "re-engaged" and are still in melee. If you "retreat" then you're going to be back out in range on your next turn no matter what, but you take an AC penalty to anyone that wants to hit you until then. On the ideas you posted, I have to say I really not a fan of how Unarmed attacks always get shafted. It's my default assumption that anyone that wants to punch someone in the face is good at punching and wouldn't be working at a disadvantage, such as a Monk, or a Fighter-as-Monk since Fighters are supposed to represent the whole gamut of fantasy martial characters. I would only really put down a unarmed attack penalty for a character whose background/class/etc would specifically fit as not being good at unarmed attacks.
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Jan 29, 2015 01:15
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OtspIII posted:What you have there looks pretty good. The parts about trying to move past/away from someone you're in melee combat with are absolutely vital if you want things like combat placement to matter at all, and being able to punish spells/ranged attacks are good too. All the stuff about setting against a charge and so on work, but aren't quite as vital and should maybe be playtested a bit to see if people have trouble remembering them. I really like that fighting retreat idea - it's simple and allows for a way to try to slowly retreat back to your own lines without getting chewed to bits if you are outnumbered. I'm definitely stealing that. I'm thinking of changing the Defending/Setting against a charge deal and just repackaging it under the Held Action mechanic. Mechanically it amounts to pretty much the same thing without having to add a little extra specific clause to defending. wallawallawingwang posted:There was some talk in the 5e thread a very long time ago regarding fighter combat superiority dice. In the build they were talking about fighters could spend a die and add the result to a damage roll, or they could spend the die when they got hit by an attack to reduce the damage by the die result. These dice came back at the start of a fighter's turn. which meant players had to decide if they wanted to play defensively or offensively from round to round, which is almost always a false choice in dnd combat, offense is always better. Someone wisely suggested that fighters get the dice back at the END of their turn instead. In effect, if team monsters didn't spend their turn attacking the fighter and whittling down his dice, they'd be setting themselves up to get walloped when he acted again and could freely spend all of his dice. I thought that was a really simple way to add a tank-ish mechanic that works on and off a grid. I definitely want to use a grid - I've played games with theater of the mind DM's and games with DM's who used mini's and grid and the combat's were always more engaging to me when you could actually see what was going on visually. Also, it's just plain easier to keep track of what's going on. Siivola posted:The rest are alright I guess, but this one is the one I'm sort of leery about. Adding a rule like this makes groups of enemies really sticky, and forces characters to commit to all their fights. Without a proper good "retreat" move, the characters' options often end up being "run away and suck up the AoO" and "walk very slowly backwards while getting punched in the noggin", which are sort of the same thing. I think having AoO only trigger if enemies are trying to pass by groups would have the downside of making the individual Fighter to be not terribly sticky at all and it would be pretty easy to move past him and hit the wizard without retaliation unless he was carefully placed in a chokepoint of some sort. Having your guys form lines would probably be a good idea though since it would mean that if you do end up fighting a group of enemies that a retreat wouldn't mean a single guy being forced to soak up all the potential attacks made. If you think the retreat is a bit too anemic though then how about an alternative where you can retreat at full speed from an enemy and if you make a successful saving throw beforehand they don't get to make their free attack against you? It's not a perfect framework and at low levels you'd still be taking a big risk but at higher levels you'd be able to disengage much easier. Could be a problem if monsters were allowed to do it too though since they would have a good chance to run past and hit the squishies with little fear of retaliation, which brings it back full circle to the stickyness problem. gradenko_2000 posted:AFAIK, B/X D&D didn't grant you a free attack: you either "fought defensively" in which case you moved back at half movement rate but retained your full AC and could still attack, or you "retreated" in which case you fled at full movement but took a -4 penalty to AC for anyone that still wanted to hit you before your movement executed (it also removed your shield AC bonus, something which I personally dislike as being too specific) Moving back at half your speed and still being able to attack seems like a pretty fair way to do a defensive retreat - though I'd still want to include the free attack if someone was trying to full out run or move past the fighter. You've convinced me on the second point - removing the penalty to unarmed attacking wouldn't be too big of a change and it would allow for more shoving and wrestling, which can be fun. Bob Quixote fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 01:36
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First of all, if you risk getting hit for trying to back out, I think it actually disincentivizes players from fleeing when they're in too deep: If you're getting hit anyway, you might as well brawl it out and see who runs out of HP faster. Even if you allow a full move back, theoretically nothing's stopping the other guy from making a full move of their own and being in a position to make another AoO on your turn. And since you're so worried for the back ranks, this also makes it extra hard for the wizard to survive if an enemy manages to slip through. Second, a fundamental problem in trying to make the Fighter sticky is that unless you're implementing some kind of aggro mechanic, she's just a traffic cone with a sword. She can't affect anything beyond her sword's reach, so you have to park her in a chokepoint anyway to keep the enemies from just walking around her. 3.5-style AoOs only mean that in certain situations, the Fighter can move forward to engage a couple of enemies all by herself – but unless the party is outnumbering the enemy, doing that would mean all the other goblins can swing around her. Basically, attacks of opportunity alone are not enough to keep the "squishies" safe, no matter what trigger you use. You can fix this by inserting an aggro mechanic that makes enemies focus on the tank, by adding more terrain to the battlemap (the wizard could conjure barrels to hide behind, for instance), or simply by making the "squishies" less likely to go "splat" – which, again, involves being able to get away from threatening enemies.
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Jan 29, 2015 09:53
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AoO's are lame as hell. I'm sure there's some theory crafted reason they helped the game, but at the table they just make things less fun. If you state your intent, and the monsters do the same like in Dark Dungeons, it's not a problem. "The goblin is going to run and swat the wizard" "OK, I'll try to jump in front of it." "I'm going to charge the goblin" "OK, then he's going to try to slip by you and hit the wizard." What pans out is up to initiative and the more brash you are, the more likely you go first. That's all you need and it's logical every single time without adding a pile of rules. My bias towards old D&D is entirely because it is more simple though, so I probably have different preferences than the reality simulator crowd.
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Jan 29, 2015 10:27
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I wonder if AoO stuff becomes better if you give Fighters the free ability to disengage from combat at will?
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Jan 29, 2015 10:32
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Siivola posted:First of all, if you risk getting hit for trying to back out, I think it actually disincentivizes players from fleeing when they're in too deep: If you're getting hit anyway, you might as well brawl it out and see who runs out of HP faster. Even if you allow a full move back, theoretically nothing's stopping the other guy from making a full move of their own and being in a position to make another AoO on your turn. And since you're so worried for the back ranks, this also makes it extra hard for the wizard to survive if an enemy manages to slip through. Yeah, those are all good points. The fact that enemies can just keep dogging your steps and chewing away at you is kind of a problem, especially if it means that they will be taking 2 shots at you a round from their initial move and attack to close the gap, plus the bonus shot from the AoO. Babylon Astronaut posted:AoO's are lame as hell. I'm sure there's some theory crafted reason they helped the game, but at the table they just make things less fun. If you state your intent, and the monsters do the same like in Dark Dungeons, it's not a problem. "The goblin is going to run and swat the wizard" "OK, I'll try to jump in front of it." "I'm going to charge the goblin" "OK, then he's going to try to slip by you and hit the wizard." What pans out is up to initiative and the more brash you are, the more likely you go first. That's all you need and it's logical every single time without adding a pile of rules. My bias towards old D&D is entirely because it is more simple though, so I probably have different preferences than the reality simulator crowd. Doing things this way seems like it would make Initiative the deciding factor in every fight, which isn't a bad way to do things if the opportunity attack gets left out entirely. There was some old quote I remember about that: “Thrice armed he that has his quarrel just; But four times he that gets his fist in first.” I guess in that sort of setup characters who wanted to play defensively would hold onto their action during their turn if they roll high and instead jump in and act on a slower enemies initiative to counter their move (ranged attackers waiting till an enemy was in close range to fire, melee fighters running in to intercept a monster in the middle of its move before it can reach the party wizard, etc.) It does have the simplifying factor of allowing only a single action per round for any character or monster if out of sequence free attacks are left out.
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Jan 29, 2015 14:33
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I like the idea of fighters/rogues being skilled enough to be immune to AoO from non-fighters/rogues. And/or only fighter (types) being allowed to make AoO on disengagement. edit: I thought this was the PoE thread when I wrote that, but I still agree in spirit.
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Jan 29, 2015 14:51
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With regards to AOOs and "tank stickiness": the actual attack doesn't matter - what matters is that the monster has a reason to not just walk away from the Fighter and/or the monster has a reason to want the Fighter dead first. Being killed because you were hit by a free attack could be that reason, but it doesn't have to be. This is especially true in the context of single weapon attack dealing a progressively smaller and smaller percentage of a monster's total HP as you move up in levels*. 4E's Combat Challenge, for example, gives a marked target a -2 attack penalty if it makes an attack that doesn't include the Fighter. Moreover, Combat Superiority (and 5E's Sentinel feat) makes successful AOOs cause targets to stop moving. Iron Heroes' Armiger can straight-up force attacks to be redirected to them instead, projects an AC-increasing aura and can act as covering terrain for allies and gets big bonuses to Grapple checks. Or the Fighter could simply be dangerous enough that the monsters want to kill him first regardless. If the Wizard has Mirror Image and Shield and Invisibility and whatnot and the Fighter is dealing a boatload of damage, then the Orcs are going to want to kill the Fighter anyway. Finally, consider the added overhead of making AOO rolls versus simply causing effects/damage period if an AOO is triggered and used. * multiple attacks don't alleviate this, but Weapon Mastery could
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Jan 29, 2015 15:52
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Bob Quixote posted:Yeah, those are all good points. The fact that enemies can just keep dogging your steps and chewing away at you is kind of a problem, especially if it means that they will be taking 2 shots at you a round from their initial move and attack to close the gap, plus the bonus shot from the AoO. Fighting retreats are more about swapping out who's on the front line than actually having the whole party run away. I'm actually pretty okay with the idea that maybe if everyone wants to flee the fight they get one round of free attacks against them first.
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Jan 29, 2015 17:03
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But that defeats the whole point of running away, which is not getting attacked any more.
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Jan 29, 2015 17:22
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Siivola posted:But that defeats the whole point of running away, which is not getting attacked any more. I know it was a widely hated article in the SA edition war BS, but I think the differences in preferences have a little to do with rpg "combat as war vs combat as sport". Siivola posted:Basically, attacks of opportunity alone are not enough to keep the "squishies" safe, no matter what trigger you use. You can fix this by inserting an aggro mechanic that makes enemies focus on the tank, by adding more terrain to the battlemap (the wizard could conjure barrels to hide behind, for instance), or simply by making the "squishies" less likely to go "splat" The strength of table games is in the narrative. DM: "The goblin tries to rush around the front line to spit on the wizard." Fighter makes a choice: attack goblin or ignore him. This will have a lot to do with the players themselves negotiating amongst themselves (and that is a good thing). DM: "The other [creature] is obviosly taking aim with their [bow/dagger/javelin] at the naked sage you keep around for some reason." The players can decide if they want to prioritize getting rid of that one archer, or continue what they are doing and let the sage dodge/deal with it for a minute. Player decisions and strategies should dominate, not mmo rules and spreadsheets of stacked passive effects. gradenko_2000 posted:4E's Combat Challenge, for example, gives a marked target a -2 attack penalty if it makes an attack that doesn't include the Fighter. Moreover, Combat Superiority (and 5E's Sentinel feat) makes successful AOOs cause targets to stop moving. "The monster freezes in place because you poked it with a stick and the book says so." "The assassinfightermonk is looking at you, so you are "marked". That means you feel bad and cant hit things." Obviously Im being sarcastic, but I dont think the MMO rules are needed in tabletop narrative games. They fit 4e because it was laid out to be a board game more than a narrative game. Trying to wedge that stuff into a non-grid game using older rulesets is pretty clunky. Opinions/preferences/IMO etc...
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Jan 29, 2015 17:38
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It's a loving miniatures game masquerading as an RPG anyway, come on.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:15
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Siivola posted:It's a loving miniatures game masquerading as an RPG anyway, come on.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:51
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Those are only "MMO rules" if you decide ahead of time to interpret them that way. There are a couple of other ways to look at it. Maybe the simplest one is that abilities like those give the players narrative control. They go beyond describing just the physical action the character takes--they reach in and tweak the fiction of the battle a little bit. When a Fighter marks a target, the Fighter's player could easily be simply describing the fictional circumstances in such a way that it makes the most sense that the Fighter is the character that target most wants to attack. Of course, maybe this is the *World-playing "the game's narrative isn't only owned by the GM" voice in my head. The other way of looking at it? Well, stop thinking of the grid as if it represents the objective physical reality of the battle that's happening. Five-foot squares are an abstraction. Let's look at these examples: FRINGE posted:"The monster freezes in place because you poked it with a stick and the book says so." Maybe the Fighter tripped the monster up with his weapon, which prevented the monster from breaking away. Maybe the Fighter stepped in the monster's path and locked it in melee combat with him and the monster's having a hard time getting past. Is the Fighter not actually in front of the monster on the board? Who cares? It's an abstraction. The characters aren't standing perfectly still waiting for their turns to come up--combat rounds happen all at once, overlapping, and the only reason we break them into turns and rounds and the battlefield into a grid is so that human players can keep track of what's going on. (This is all assuming you're using a grid in the first place; if you aren't, it's even easier to come up with fictional justifications for "a Fighter's opportunity attack caused the monster to stop moving" that aren't just "the book said so.") FRINGE posted:"The assassinfightermonk is looking at you, so you are "marked". That means you feel bad and cant hit things." To use 4e as an example here: in many cases--as in, any defender who isn't Martial--these abilities are explicitly magical already. A Paladin is issuing a divine challenge to a monster that compels them to focus on the Paladin, and the penalty they incur is because they're actively resisting the influence of some divine force. For a Martial defender? Maybe the Fighter is such an intimidating, impressive presence on the battlefield that it's hard to focus on anything else while he's tearing poo poo up. Maybe the Fighter "marking" the target is actively trying to keep that target in melee with him--again, the grid and turn order are abstractions, and Fighters aren't exactly marking targets from 100 feet away. Basically: these abilities don't fit in a narrative game for you because you've decided to interpret them as extra-narrative. It doesn't have to be interpreted that way.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:40
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36 pages in and this thread is absolute garbage. All I've read for the past few months is how to make playing D&D less like playing D&D, how to add tedious overly complicated rules to relatively simple systems, and how to shoehorn in modern rpg systems into the retro systems. The reason people play the older systems is because they are fun, and arose from entirely different line of thinking about how rpgs should be played. This thread is the antithesis of fun or interesting. Most the crap here belongs in a different thread. The recent talk about what a great idea it would be to have more defined class roles (as opposed to fantasy archetypes) is the last straw for me, count me out of this discussion.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:07
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I ported 4e's action economy into my 2e game first thing because it really is the best. Minors have been great to adjudicate switching weapons and grabbing material components for spells.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:12
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CountingWizard posted:36 pages in and this thread is absolute garbage. All I've read for the past few months is how to make playing D&D less like playing D&D, how to add tedious overly complicated rules to relatively simple systems, and how to shoehorn in modern rpg systems into the retro systems.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:16
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CountingWizard posted:36 pages in and this thread is absolute garbage. All I've read for the past few months is how to make playing D&D less like playing D&D, how to add tedious overly complicated rules to relatively simple systems, and how to shoehorn in modern rpg systems into the retro systems. I'm sorry are you mad that we're not stuck in the 1970s? Are you mad that black people want equal rights and women don't listen to their husbands, too? How much of your "entirely different line of thinking" is from A Voice For Men and Stormfront? You should go back to therpgsite. Don't worry it's a safe space for whiny old shitlords like you. They'll even nod at you and pretend they care about your opinions to your face, unlike us. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 29, 2015 20:17
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I was chatting with some friends about saving throws. This is one area where old edition play is fundamentally different, which switches things up: 1) Up to 2e, your saves just improve. Fighters improve the fastest, but have less than awesome saves to start. 2) 3e saves improve, but need to overcome successively higher DCs. This totally changes how some things get balanced. Instant paralysis and death effects always stick at the same level of danger instead of declining into patches of bad luck. 3) 4e's "saves" are really defenses, and the game is tightly integrated with them, but still scales threats by level. The actual "saving throw" is really a time tracking mechanism. #1 blunts caster supremacy significantly at higher levels. With good saves instant death/knockout stuff hardly ever works on you, and the remaining effects skew to damaging effects which fundamentally scale to hit point accumulation. Something to chew on.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:19
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I haven't played a lot of 4th, but the suspension of disbelief required to accept "The enemy fighter is harrying you and pressing on your defenses, some of your attention this round will have to be spent dealing with that. Take a -2 unless you decide to focus on them. " Doesn't strain my imagination much more than "We're going to hand wave away the description of the next six seconds of intense manuevering for position, attacks, parries and counter-attacks by making an attack roll and seeing if you landed an attack that does damage." Currently I play in a S&W game where combat is very fluid, fast and abstract, with no miniatures. It's cool and lets us focus on moving on to the next thing the party is doing. We don't worry about attacks of opportunity or fighting retreats, etc. In the DCC game I run we're using miniatures and a grid, but aren't using finicky poo poo like diagonal movement costing more. The player's with Warriors have used the Might Deed of Arms mechanic to do things like forced movement, mark and attacks of opportunity. Or as they they put it "I body check the fucker into the hallway/I get up in the orc's face and make sure he's paying attention to my axe/Any motherfucker that comes within reach gets smacked/I look for an opening." Retreating we've handled as giving a single free attack to someone who is actively in melee with you, unless your only action is movement. So far its worked for us, but we're not trying to kit bash the platonic ideal of D&D out of it. Edit: We also allow a couple of particular "held" actions - anyone can declare their action for the turn to be "Waiting to attack the 1st person who comes within range". We decided on that after a session where nobody thought it was right to be able to run up to a line of alert pikeman without some danger. Glorified Scrivener fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 21:07
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Hey, there was some chat about making characters a bit more survivable in B/X at lower levels here a while back. I've been doing some thinking: I'm of the mind that at lower levels characters should be able to not die to the first lucky hit from a goblin, simply because I think the difficulty curve of the game should go up, not down. Start the PCs with more hit points to begin with and the game becomes less swingy at lower levels. This also means that the GM doesn't need to pull any punches: once a character has a few more hit points to begin with, players SHOULD be able to realize early on if they're taking a beating and react accordingly. On the other side of this, at some point I want hit points to plateau so the initial boost given at 1st level actually becomes less significant in the greater scheme of things. At higher levels, when players have already learned to play smart, they'll have many more tricks up their sleeve to deal with the ramping challenge. So, I did some calculations: my original plan was to have hit points be Constitution score plus hit dice (without adding the Constitution modifier to the rolls, because players shouldn't be able to gain double the benefits of a high Constitution score) but after some calculations I realize that in comparison to vanilla B/X hit points remained higher and never plateaued. Thus, I decided to steal an idea from Hackmaster: characters only gain new hit dice at odd levels, and at even levels characters can reroll their previously rolled hit die, taking the new result if it's better than the previous roll. As a general rule, characters with a lower Constitution score gain the most out of this new system as opposed to vanilla B/X. Based on my quick calculations, these are the breaking points for high Con Fighters (i.e. the levels at which they'd age more hit points under vanilla B/X): Con 13 - Level 6 Con 16 - Level 5 Con 18 - Level 4 I'm going to do some more calculations for lower Con scores as well as the values in between those three. Edit: in case I wasn't clear, my new method for determining hit points is Constitution Score+Hit Die at 1st level. At even levels characters get to reroll the Hit Die for their previous level, and they can never lose hit points this way. At odd levels characters get a new Hit Die. Ratpick fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 21:16
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Turns out I'm pretty bad at eyeballing AC levels: apparently a level 1 Fighter with 15 STR and a +1 weapon is only going to have a 45% chance to hit! What I ended up doing on the back-end was removing 1 HP (from the 2 HD monster) even on a miss, and there were enough/so many whiffs that the one hit that did connect was a killing blow right away. I think that makes it a little bit closer to the "Errol Flynn" model of combat that HP was originally supposed to represent, and is easier to remember to do than "Escalation Die". Also, for all I've written about spells and spell lists, turns out a 3 player party of an Elf, a Fighter and a Thief that clears out an entire dozen-room dungeon in one long go is going to need that one shot of Sleep to just end an encounter that they really need to end right now and it's not going to throw off the balance too much. I think I'll just let that one go for a while. Ratpick posted:Words on HP I don't really play enough to see players reach higher levels yet, but I do like the idea of letting players reroll all their hit dice whenever they level up and letting them take the higher result to create a situation where they grow out of the CON score "crutch" eventually and bad rolls are mitigated against.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:55
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 00:31 |
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Glorified Scrivener posted:
This guy knows whats up. I too run DCC regularly, and we don't use minis yet. I might introduce them later when AoE attacks/spells become a thing, but at low levels its awesome not loving with grids and counting squares and poo poo. Its not hard to do, but it just eliminates something our group doesn't find necessary or something to abuse.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:12
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